>John,
> You are quite correct, evolution is a complex phenomenon and its
>role is still subject to much discussion and debate. Keep in mind that
>nature is amoral, there are no "good" or "bad" aspects to the natural
I'm sorry if there is such a thing as evolution it is still a plan not an
accident. Someone or something is driving that plan. How would you evolve an
eye or a wing (and give it as many millions of years as you like)? I suppose
it is an accident that you all learned to study biology. No it was a plan.
The world is awesomely and wonderfully made look into your microscope and
tell me it's not.
>world, it simply is. There are no real "driving forces", there do not
>need to be. As Douglas Futuyma states in his excellent text Evolutionary
>Biology, "Neither natural selection nor any of the other mechanisms
>(ecological, genetic, geographic, etc., my addition) are providential;
>natural selection, for example, is merely the superior survival or reproduction
>of some genetic variants compared to others under whatever environmental
>conditions happen to prevail at the moment. Thus natural selection
>cannot equip a species to face novel future contingencies, and it has no
>purpose or goal-not even survival of the species."
> All of those factors which ultimately drive the changes in the
>genome of a population can lead to evolution, since this is ultimately
>what evolution is- accumulation of variation in the genome, either through
>mutation, selection, drift, or other factors. If some of the the factors
>which promote such variation enhance the survival of the individual
>species, then that species wins. I hope this helps.
>Joe
